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IRS Will Not Seek Taxpayer Emails Without a Warrant

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The IRS on Wednesday announced a new policy regarding
how it will request emails from internet service providers
(ISPs) (IRS Policy Statement 4-120). Under
the new policy, the IRS will obtain a search warrant “in
all cases when seeking … the content of email
communications stored by the ISP.” In addition, the policy
statement says the IRS will not seek emails during civil
administrative proceedings.

The policy statement
also says that the IRS will update any guidance “that is
not in accord” with the new policy.

The issue of
whether the IRS obtains search warrants before seeking
emails from ISPs was raised in April, when the American
Civil Liberties Union reported that documents it had
obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request
suggested that it was the IRS’s position that it did not
need to obtain a warrant before reading taxpayer emails
during criminal investigations.

In response, House
Subcommittee on Oversight Chairman Charles Boustany,
R-La., asked the IRS to provide him with
its policy and procedures for when a search warrant is
needed to review private emails. He also asked for
information about ways the IRS may gather taxpayer
information from social media.

The report also
prompted the introduction of a bill, the Electronic
Communications Privacy Act Amendments Act of 2013, S. 607, that would prohibit ISPs
from voluntarily disclosing customer emails to the
government. The bill would also require the government to
notify an individual when it obtains that person’s email
from an ISP.

The winners of The Tax Adviser’s 2016 Best Article Award are Edward Schnee, CPA, Ph.D., and W. Eugene Seago, J.D., Ph.D., for their article, “Taxation of Worthless and Abandoned Partnership Interests.”

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